Why bonus tracks for japan

The Hud , Mar 16, Blame MacArthur. He wrote it in their constitution. Fastnbulbous , Mar 16, Bonus tracks are everywhere now. It's getting to the point where I'm hesitant to buy any edition of an album out of fear that there's a more complete version I could buy elsewhere.

Dr Mike , Mar 16, For me at least, this is where illegal downloading comes into play. I will buy the album wherever I can find it, but if I find out later that I missed out on a bonus track then I will be content with tracking it down and downloading it. I'm not going to buy the album again just to get that one track. Location: Montreal, Canada. New Posts.

Members Profile. Same thing with some Dream Theater releases. They're either live versions of songs, or unreleased material. There's more but i cant recall off the top of my head. Do you know why Japan gets all these special releases?

Is their fan base larger there? My Last. This is a very good question. I remember hearing something about a law in Japan where CDs had to have so many songs. Of course, this doesn't make any sense when dealing with prog albums with only 3 songs. They have a really big purchasing power over there Japanese CDs are expensive and imports tend to be cheaper than their domestic pressings.

Adding bonus material to the Japanese issues ensures sales of the local item. I don't know but it's freaking annoying. One particularly annoying instance recently. It even blatantly has space on the tracklist for it, but it's a freaking Japanese bonus track.

It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. According to a user on MetaFilter :. According to a friend who runs a small record label that occasionally does business in Japan: it's because it is invariably cheaper for Japanese buyers to import CDs rather than purchase them in their local record store. The extra tracks are there to provide an incentive for buying the domestic version.

Without the extra tracks, Japanese retailers are reluctant to sell the CDs knowing that a large portion of the potential purchasers will simply be importing the product. The bonus tracks are to encourage Japanese to buy the Japanese edition. I recall that a similar tactic was also used for European releases in the s, because it was cheaper for record shops to import US CDs.

Most of the material was actually released world-wide in the past 10 years, but at the time would have simply been considered 'bootleg' anywhere else. My extension to that premise is that the record company could 'legally' under JASRAC add extra tracks - unfinished tracks, early demo versions etc - without the artist's permission. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why are bonus tracks so common in Japanese versions? Ask Question.